Actresses Valerie Bertinelli, McKenzie Phillips and Bonnie Franklin starred in the CBS series “One Day at a Time.” Franklin died Friday in Los Angeles of complications from pancreatic cancer. She was 69.

Bonnie Franklin, whose portrayal of a pert but determined Ann Romano on the television show “One Day at a Time” in the 1970s and ’80s spun laughter out of the tribulations of a divorced woman juggling parenting, career, love life and feminist convictions, died Friday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 69.

The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, family members said. They had announced the diagnosis in September.

Franklin also acted on the stage and in movies and for years sang and danced in a nightclub act. But she was most widely known in the role of Ann Romano, one of the first independent women to be portrayed on TV, wrestling with issues such as sexual harassment, rape and menopause. Franklin — green-eyed, red-haired, button-nosed and 5 feet 3 inches tall — brought a buoyant comic touch to the part.

Some saw the show as helping feminism enter the mainstream.

“I know it’s just a television show, and I don’t think that I am changing the way the world is structured,” Franklin told The Washington Post in 1980, but she allowed that “sometimes we strike chords that do make people think a bit.”

“One Day at a Time” ran from December 1975 to May 1984, and its ratings ranked in the top 20 in eight of those seasons and in the top 10 in four. Franklin was nominated for an Emmy Award and twice for a Golden Globe.

The show’s topicality fell squarely in the tradition of its developer, Norman Lear, who had gained renown for introducing political and social commentary to situation comedy with “All in the Family” and other shows.

Like Archie and Edith Bunker in “All in the Family,” Ann and her daughters, Julie and Barbara Cooper (Mackenzie Phillips and Valerie Bertinelli), used comedy in the service of grappling with serious, and thorny, real-world matters.

As a divorced mother who had reverted to her maiden name and relocated to Indianapolis, Ann fought her deadbeat ex-husband for child support, for example. Or she dealt with a daughter deciding whether to remain a virgin.

Comic relief came from the visits of the building superintendent, Dwayne Schneider (Pat Harrington). But Franklin was said to have pushed the producers toward greater realism, urging them to take on issues such as teen pregnancy and to avoid letting the show lapse into comic shtick.

By the time the show ended in 1984, Ann’s daughters had grown and married and Ann herself had remarried and become a grandmother.